Thursday, March 6, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
When Chuck Floyd heard three loud claps, he knew exactly what to do.
"We've been through training for this kind of thing," the 48-year-old Clark County School District bus driver said. "When we have serious problems, the best thing to do is leave the area as fast as you possibly can.
"I didn't take any chances. I just took off."
The serious problem Floyd was referring to was the 7:20 a.m. Wednesday shooting at his school bus. Floyd had just made his last pickup of 15 Swainston Middle School students at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Helen Street when the bus was shot at. The bus was loaded with 35 children.
A student on the bus was the apparent target of the shooting but only one bullet hit the bus, striking a rear taillight. No injuries were reported.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and charged with the shooting.
Floyd, who has been with the school district for just more than a year, said even though he saw the gunman put the gun in his pants after firing three rounds, he didn't think his bus had really been shot at.
"I thought it might have been a pop gun," Floyd said. "We expect to see eggs and rocks all the time, but not guns."
Floyd saw the shooter standing on the opposite side of Martin Luther King Boulevard before he crossed the street to the driver's side of the school bus. At that point, Floyd said he didn't know if the young man was a student or not.
School police said the 17-year-old was neither a student nor a graduate of any Clark County schools.
Floyd said the 17-year-old was standing "a good 100, 150 feet behind the bus, about one or two houses away" when he fired the three shots.
"One thing that made the situation better was the person was a lousy shot," Floyd said. "If he would have hit one of the windows, a lot of people could have gotten seriously hurt."
Floyd's main concern was for the safety of the students. He said as soon as he got the bus a safe distance away, he stopped and did "a hasty run around the bus" to check for damage, then drove to the school "where it was safe."
"The gun that was used was an automatic," Floyd said. "He had already used three and I knew he had six shots left. I was kind of worried about if he would be back shooting at me when I came back up the street."
He knew none of the students was hurt because there was no broken glass on the bus and no students were hysterical. In fact, because of the typical commotion on school buses, Floyd said a majority of the students weren't aware of the shooting.
It wasn't until he got to school and did a closer examination of the bus that Floyd realized it had been hit.
Thinking back to the morning's events, Floyd was proud of the way he took care of the situation.
"Getting the kids on the bus, getting them out of the situation that just flared up without knowing what was going on, I think I handled it as best as it could have been handled," Floyd said.
Wednesday's shooting made Floyd acutely aware of the concern he said he always carries for his nine children, who range in age from 9-24. Six are enrolled in the Clark County school system.
"I just worry overall about some crazy person that's underage being able to walk up with a handgun, that can't legally buy one and can't even get bullets for one, and because of their age they look young enough so they can walk into any school and open fire.
"I worry about my children's safety all the time. Our society has decayed so greatly."
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